Journal

This section should actually read: Taxation without consent is as plainly robbery, when enforced against one man, as when enforced against millions... Taking a man's money without his consent, is also as much robbery, when it is done by millions of men, acting in concert, and calling themselves a government, as when it is done by a single individual, acting on his own responsibility, and calling himself a highwayman. Neither the numbers engaged in the act, nor the different characters they assume as a cover for the act, alter the nature of the act itself.
- Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (1869)

Unfortuantely, it has become increasingly difficult to express any opinion that is not on par with what governments across the globe have been indoctrinating into people; An opinion that will likely put a man in a box, by societies that have been conditioned to increasingly think in extremes: Black and white, left and right, us and them. So let's instead quote Herman Melville:


Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.

- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851)

  • Updates 2022/Q1
    Updates 2022/Q1
    Project updates from the current consecutive three-month period, with info on the current status of my projects and next steps. You might find this interesting in case you’re using any of my open source tools.
  • reader: Web page readability on the CLI
    reader: Web page readability on the CLI
    reader is for your command line what the “readability” view is for modern browsers: A lightweight tool offering better readability of web pages on the CLI.
  • Frankenswitch: The Poor-Man’s Soju Switch
    Frankenswitch: The Poor-Man's Soju Switch
    A while ago I stumbled upon an interesting Frankenswitch dubbed the Soju Switch: A combination of an C³Equalz X TKC Kiwi bottom, a Boba U4 top and a Lumia stem. I was tempted to build it, but ideally with parts that are more readily available and maybe even cheaper.
  • Gemini is Solutionism at its Worst
    Gemini is Solutionism at its Worst
    While I don’t care too much about ideas and projects that I believe to be dead ends or maybe even doomed to fail eventually, a recent interaction on Superhighway84 got me to write down a few thoughts on why I believe Project Gemini is a really bad idea.
  • Superhighway84
    Superhighway84
    Superhighway84 is an USENET-inspired decentralized internet discussion system, featuring a retro text user interface and powered by IPFS and OrbitDB.
  • Let’s Take Wikipedia Offline!
    Let's Take Wikipedia Offline!
    Well, not literally. But what if you could look up Wikipedia in an instant, without even requiring a working internet connection?
    Call it doomsday prepping or just a precaution, but let’s see if we can have our own copy of Wikipedia running offline, without having too much trouble along the way.